Macau: Malaysia’s No. 3 seeds Tan Kian Meng/Lai Pei Jing survived a stern examination by No. 8 seeds Alfian Eko Prasetya/Annisa Saufika of Indonesia on Friday to earn a semi-final place in the Macau Open Grand Prix Gold Badminton Championship at Tap Seac Multisport Pavilion.
Tan/Lai recovered from a 6-13 deficit in the first set to take the game 22-20. In a see-saw second set, Tan/Lai coolly worked their way past Prasetya/Saufika 24-22 to make the mixed doubles semi-finals. The Malaysian pair will play No. 7 seed Tang Chun Man/Tse Ying Suet on Saturday.
On the contrary, lucks were running out for the Rio Olympics 2016 mixed doubles silver medalists and No. 1 seeds Chan Peng Soon/Goh Liu Ying when they were defeated by unseeded pair Zhang Nan/Li Yinhui, losing 12-21, 22-20 and 15-21.
Malaysia’s challenge in the men’s singles has also fizzled out after Chong Wei Feng bowed out to Wang Tzu Wei of Taiwan 13-21, 17-21, while Malaysia’s 2015 girls’ World Junior champion Goh Jin Wei lost to the 2016 girls’ World Junior champion Chen Yufei of China 14-21, and 10-21 in 33 minutes.
In women’s doubles, two Malaysian pairs made into the semi-finals respectively after No. 2 seeds Vivian Hoo Kah Mun/Woon Khe Wei defeated Wen Hao Yun/Ye Jing Ya of Taiwan 21-15, 21-18 while Chow Mei Kuan/Lee Meng Yean battled past another Taiwanese pair Hsu Ya Ching/Wu Ti Jung; 21-12, 21-14 in 35 minutes.
Hoo/Woon will take on Indonesian pair Anggia Shitta Awanda/Mahadewi Istirani Ni Ketut next while Chow/Lee will play the red-hot No. 1 seeds Chen Qingchen/Jia Yifan of China on Saturday.
